9371. THE INTERNAL SENSE.

Verses 1-2. And He said unto Moses, Come up unto Jehovah, thou and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and bow yourselves afar off; and Moses, he alone, shall come near unto Jehovah; and they shall not come near; and the people shall not come up with him. “And He said unto Moses,” signifies that which concerns the Word in general; “come up unto Jehovah,” signifies conjunction with the Lord; “thou and Aaron,” signifies the Word in the internal sense and the external sense; “Nadab and Abihu,” signifies doctrine from both senses; “and seventy of the elders of Israel,” signifies the chief truths of the church which are of the Word, or of doctrine, and which agree with good; “and bow yourselves afar off,” signifies humiliation and adoration from the heart, and then the influx of the Lord; “and Moses, he alone, shall come near unto Jehovah,” signifies the conjunction and presence of the Lord through the Word in general; “and they shall not come near,” signifies no separate conjunction and presence; “and the people shall not come up with him,” signifies no conjunction whatever with the external apart from the internal.

5915. And I will sustain thee there. That this signifies continuous influx of spiritual life from the internal celestial, is evident from the signification of “sustaining,” when it is said by Joseph, by whom is represented the internal celestial, as being the influx of spiritual life from the internal celestial; sustenance in the spiritual sense being nothing else than the influx of good and of truth through heaven from the Lord. From this are the angels sustained, and from this is the soul of man (that is, his internal man) sustained. To this sustenance corresponds the sustenance of the external man by food and drink; and therefore by “food” is signified good, and by “drink,” truth. Such also is the correspondence, that when a man is partaking of food, the angels with him are in the idea of good and truth, and wonderful to say with a difference according to the species of the food. Thus when a man in the Holy Supper receives the bread and the wine, the angels with him are in the idea of the good of love and the good of faith (n. 3464, 3735), for the reason that bread corresponds to the good of love, and wine to the good of faith; and because they correspond, they also signify the same in the Word.

[2] That man’s soul (that is, the internal man) is sustained by spiritual food and drink, that is, by good and truth, is evident from the Lord’s words in Moses:

Man doth not live by bread only, but by every utterance of the mouth of Jehovah doth man live (Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4).

The “utterance of the mouth of Jehovah” is the good and the truth which proceed from Him.

In John:

Labor not for the food which perisheth, but for the food which remaineth into eternal life, which the Son of man will give you (John 6:27).

Again:

The disciples besought Jesus, saying, Master, eat. He said to them, I have food to eat that ye know not (John 4:31-32).

And concerning drink, in the same:

Jesus said, If anyone thirst, let him come unto me and drink; whosoever believeth in Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow streams of living water (John 7:37-38).

2048. That “he that is born in the house” signifies those who are celestial, and that “he that is bought with silver” signifies those who are spiritual, and that they thus signify those who are within the church, is evident from the signification of one “born in the house,” as being those who are within the house. A “house,” in the Word, signifies what is celestial, because this is the inmost; whence by the “house of God” in a universal sense is signified the Lord’s kingdom; in a sense less universal, His church; and in a particular sense, the man himself in whom there is the Lord’s kingdom or church. When man is called a “house,” the celestial of faith in him is signified; and when he is called a “temple,” the truth of faith in him is signified; thus here by one “born in the house” those who are celestial are signified. But that “he that is bought with silver” signifies those who are spiritual, is evident from the signification of “silver,” as being truth, thus the spiritual of faith (see Part First, n. 1551).

[2] Those are called celestial who are in love to the Lord; and as the Most Ancient Church, which was before the flood, was in this love, it was a celestial church. Those are called spiritual who are in love toward the neighbor and thereby in the truth of faith, as was the Ancient Church, which was after the flood. The distinction between the celestial and the spiritual has been treated of many times in Part First. Everyone can see that there are heavenly arcana in what is here said, namely, that those born in the house were to be circumcised, and those bought with silver, and also the sons that were strangers; and also from their being repeatedly mentioned (as in verses 13, 23, and 27, which follow); which arcana do not appear except from the internal sense, which shows that by those born in the house and those bought with silver are signified the celestial and the spiritual, thus those who are within the church; and that by “a son that is a stranger who is not of thy seed” are signified those who are outside the church.